


Five After Two

by frogfarm



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Birthday, Challenge Response, Christmas, Coma, Drabble, Gen, Isolation, Personal Growth, Prison
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-11
Updated: 2006-12-11
Packaged: 2017-10-22 16:57:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/240311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frogfarm/pseuds/frogfarm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the Facets Of Faith Anniversary Challenge, "Two Years After". Five drabbles, each two years after a significant event. Fits into both canon and <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/series/562">Faith the Vampire Slayer</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five After Two

**out of the blue**

  
Not quite perfect, because Buffy was supposed to be here too. But Faith isn't thinking of perky blondes and dashing beefy boyfriends; too busy blissed out on hot chocolate, snowflakes on her tongue. Sweet sixteen was anything but, and neither did the next raise her hopes for the future. Now she laughs to the sky, feeling Joyce's arm around her as they gaze to the heavens, she's a legal fricking adult and all she wants is to be adopted. Wipe away the last traces of her old life.

Years later, it's still one of the best memories.

And the worst.

* * *

**into the black**

  
She drowns in dreams, blindly treading treacle. A fly in amber, as Buffy pulls her down.

Endlessly reliving her own special hell.

They're all there, the Mayor to Joyce; they're all so disappointed and she doesn't care, it all eats itself and yet some tiny part of her is still aware, despairing. That the world moves on, oblivious, without her. That all Diana's vaunted prophecies come to this inglorious end. That she who was Chosen should lie here a helpless bag of meat.

For the rest of her life, Faith thinks of this moment.

Every time she goes to sleep.

* * *

**after the fall**

  
She can't remember when Angel last visited, and it almost doesn't matter now she's been out of solitary longer than in. Back to genpop, even into the infirmary, though everyone expects she won't make it more than a month. Faith ignores the desultory catcalls and halfhearted jabs, the unsubtle and more so attempts to enlist her to smuggle out the good stuff. Silently wipes away strangers' blood and tears, feeling like a clumsy Scooby copy, and when it gets too much she thinks of a man she never knew.

The pain and fear, as the light left his eyes forever.

* * *

**a hole in the world**

  
Surrounded by people, half of them admiring strangers, and she's never been more alone. Leaving solitary was one thing, even coming back into the world not so bad, but from the moment she set foot back in Buffy's town it's obvious nothing's changed; nothing but trouble, from the boys in blue to the big blonde cheese herself. Some fucking Slayer, can't handle one little preacher after standing up to a mountain of Beast, and now when Faith closes her eyes she sees Xander lose his, over and over. Hears his scream pierce her heart. Telling her she's too late.

Again.

* * *

**learning to fly**

  
Every day feels like starting over, since the Hellmouth closed its doors. At least that's how it seemed for a time, playing it cool with every fresh new responsibility handed her way; finding new Slayers, training them up.

Wondering when she'll have to beat one down.

Then they brought Dana, and that was the ultimate gunshy: Seeing and hearing herself and Buffy, a thousand others in constant battle. But somehow they've reached one another across the gulf of insanity, and now they lie snuggled on a couch in a small London flat by the fire. Watching the thunderstorm outside.

Together.

**

**Author's Note:**

> For the Facets Of Faith Anniversary Challenge, "Two Years After". Five drabbles, each two years after a significant event. Respectively:
> 
> \- sixteenth birthday  
> \- being Chosen  
> \- killing Alan Finch  
> \- leaving solitary  
> \- sealing the Hellmouth


End file.
